Net-Positive Ships: A Clean Tech Marketing Playbook

A clean tech startup that claims it can follow the wind, make green hydrogen at sea, and do it on a startup budget sounds like the sort of idea people either dismiss in 10 seconds or obsess over for weeks.

DRIFT Energy sits firmly in the second camp. Founder Ben Medland’s origin story starts with a six-year-old pointing at a distant wind turbine and asking a brutally practical question: if the wind isn’t blowing there, why not go where it is? That single moment is more than a product insight. It’s a marketing asset—because it makes the mission understandable, memorable, and repeatable.

This post is part of our Climate Change & Net Zero Transition series, where we look at how real-world innovation turns net-zero commitments into infrastructure, jobs, and scalable businesses. Here’s the angle I’m taking: DRIFT is a compelling case study not just in renewable energy, but in how British clean tech startups can market complex climate solutions to win leads, partners, and credibility.

What “mobile renewable energy” actually means (and why it sells)

Mobile renewable energy means the asset moves to the resource, instead of waiting for the resource to show up. In DRIFT’s case, that asset is a high-performance sailing vessel designed to seek out deep-ocean wind, generate electricity, and convert it into green hydrogen onboard.

That matters in the net zero transition for a simple reason: many renewables are tied to location. Solar depends on irradiance and land. Offshore wind depends on fixed sites, seabed rights, grid connection, and long build timelines. A mobile system flips the constraint.

The DRIFT concept in plain English

The system described by DRIFT has three key parts:

1. Sailing vessels that “follow the wind” using an AI-enabled routing algorithm to stay in strong, consistent wind conditions.
2. Under-hull turbines that turn the vessel’s motion through water into electric power.
3. An onboard electrolyser that uses that electricity to split seawater into green hydrogen and oxygen (with solar panels helping power onboard batteries).

Here’s the snippet-worthy version: They don’t build a wind farm where the wind might be. They send a ship to where the wind is.

Why this framing is a marketing advantage

Most climate tech founders lead with complexity—electrolysers, yield curves, capacity factors, LCOH. Investors may like that, but customers and partners buy clarity first.

DRIFT’s framing (“fishing vessels for energy”) does three things well:

• It’s visual: people can picture it.
• It’s intuitive: chasing wind makes immediate sense.
• It’s scalable as a story: from a child’s question to a planet-scale solution.

If you’re marketing a climate change or net-zero product, your first job isn’t education. It’s comprehension.

Net-positive shipping and green hydrogen: why the timing is right

The market context has shifted. By January 2026, the UK and Europe are deep into the hard part of the net zero transition: decarbonising the “awkward” sectors—heavy industry, shipping, and high-temperature heat.

Green hydrogen keeps showing up in those conversations because it’s one of the few credible routes to decarbonise:

• certain industrial processes (e.g., high-heat manufacturing)
• parts of shipping and maritime fuels
• seasonal energy storage and grid balancing (in specific contexts)

Hydrogen isn’t a magic answer. But it’s increasingly a strategic input—and that means hydrogen production methods become a competitive arena.

The lead-generation insight: sell the constraint you remove

In net-zero markets, buyers don’t only pay for “clean.” They pay to remove constraints:

• grid connection delays
• land use and planning risk
• offshore construction timelines
• intermittency that makes supply contracts messy

DRIFT’s promise—renewable energy independent of power grids—targets a constraint that procurement teams already feel.

For a UK clean tech startup, this is a useful marketing lesson: “We’re sustainable” is table stakes. “We reduce your project risk and timeline” creates inbound interest.

The startup-budget reality: ambition isn’t the hard part

Most companies get this wrong: they treat fundraising, hiring, and customer onboarding as separate workstreams. For early-stage clean tech, they’re the same workstream.

DRIFT’s story highlights the typical set of constraints:

• Raising capital while building hardware is expensive and slow
• Recruiting specialised talent is competitive (AI, marine engineering, electrochemistry)
• Customer onboarding is hard when the product category is new

What’s notable is how they’ve built credibility signals early: demonstrating green hydrogen production on a demonstrator yacht at SailGP (2022), earning mainstream coverage, and securing backing from deep tech investors plus Innovate UK grant support.

A practical marketing stance for founders: credibility is a product feature

In climate tech, trust is part of what you sell. Your buyer is thinking:

• Will this still exist in 24 months?
• Will it get certified and insured?
• Can my operations team rely on it?
• Will the regulator change the rules?

So you need to market credibility as deliberately as you market capability.

A simple checklist I’ve found useful for British clean tech startups:

• Proof: demos, pilots, third-party testing
• Permission: regulatory pathways and safety approach
• People: operator-grade advisors, domain hires, board composition
• Partners: credible collaborators (maritime, energy, industrial)
• Procurement fit: contract structures buyers recognise

That’s not “PR.” It’s conversion.

How to tell a mission-driven story that wins partners (not just applause)

A mission helps you get attention. A mission tied to a commercial narrative helps you get meetings.

DRIFT’s origin story works because it’s not generic “save the planet” messaging. It’s a moment of problem clarity followed by a concrete solution.

Use the “lightbulb moment” structure (and earn the right to scale)

Here’s a story structure that consistently performs well for climate change and net zero transition products:

1. Specific trigger (a moment, an observation, a failure in the status quo)
2. Contradiction (“Why does it work this way?”)
3. New approach (simple explanation first, technical proof second)
4. Credibility (demo, pilot, investors, grants)
5. Market pull (who needs it and why now)

DRIFT’s trigger is a child’s question. But the same structure can come from:

• a procurement dead-end (grid waitlist, site rejection)
• a compliance deadline (Scope 1–3 pressure)
• an operational cost spike (fuel volatility)

The key is this: the story has to point to a buying decision.

Turn a complex product into three repeatable messages

If you’re marketing deep tech, you need three layers of messaging that stay consistent:

• One sentence (for intros): “We produce green hydrogen at sea by following deep-ocean wind.”
• One paragraph (for decks and site copy): explain the ship, routing, turbines, electrolyser, and use cases.
• One page (for diligence): performance assumptions, safety, deployment model, economics, timelines.

Most startups write the one-page version and hope people reverse-engineer the rest. Don’t.

What other UK clean tech founders can copy from DRIFT (this week)

You don’t need a sailing ship to use these lessons. You need discipline.

1) Market the timeline, not just the tech

DRIFT claims their complete solution can be up to ten times faster to implement than some offshore infrastructure. Whether your number is 3x or 10x, speed is a concrete buying reason.

Action you can take:

• Put your deployment timeline on the website.
• Show the steps and what you’ve de-risked.
• Name the blocker you remove (planning, grid, capex, labour, supply chain).

2) Build “goodwill” on purpose

The article notes a high volume of goodwill from public, industry, and government stakeholders. That doesn’t happen by accident.

Action you can take:

• Create a stakeholder map: regulators, councils, industry bodies, universities, clusters.
• Publish one thoughtful brief per quarter (not hype): safety, standards, deployment plan.
• Host a small roundtable with operators, not influencers.

Goodwill becomes partnerships. Partnerships become pilots. Pilots become revenue.

3) Treat demonstrations as marketing campaigns

Their SailGP demonstration wasn’t just engineering validation. It was a narrative moment with a built-in audience.

Action you can take:

• Design demos with shareable outputs: a clear before/after, a measurable result, a photo/video moment.
• Prepare a one-page explainer with the three-layer messaging.
• Collect quotes from credible observers (operators, not just investors).

4) Choose a category name people can remember

“Fishing vessels for energy” is sticky. “AI-enabled vessel routing for offshore hydrogen generation” is accurate, but forgettable.

Action you can take:

• Workshop 5–10 category phrases.
• Test them in sales calls: which one gets immediate nods?
• Pick one and repeat it everywhere.

People also ask: quick answers for net-positive ships and ocean wind

Is green hydrogen produced at sea actually useful?

Yes—if you can store and deliver it economically and safely. Sea-based production can make sense when it avoids grid constraints and accesses stronger wind resources.

What does “net-positive ship” mean in practice?

A net-positive ship produces more clean energy (and/or avoids more emissions) than it consumes across its operation, when measured with a defined boundary (operations, maintenance, and fuel inputs).

Why does this matter for the climate change and net zero transition agenda?

Because the transition fails if we only decarbonise the easy parts. Hard-to-abate sectors need new production models, new infrastructure, and faster deployment options.

The stance: climate tech marketing should sound like operations

Mission-driven storytelling is powerful—but only when it’s tied to operational reality. DRIFT’s narrative works because it’s both human (“a child asked why”) and practical (“we follow deep-ocean wind, generate power, make hydrogen”).

If you’re building in the UK’s clean tech ecosystem, this is the bar now: explain the product so clearly that a non-specialist can repeat it, then back it with proof so a specialist takes it seriously.

If you want more qualified leads, don’t aim for viral. Aim for understood. Which part of your net zero value proposition is still too hard to repeat in one sentence?